[The Doug]

A friend of mine is going to switch and buy a mint-condition Lime iBook Special Edition (you know, the clamshell model).

The price is right, and it's a sweet little machine, which will do well as my friend's first Mac. But it comes with a DVD/CD ROM - which means no burning music discs for the car.

What would my friend's options be with regards to buying a decent, inexpensive external CD R/W drive?

Your advice & comments would be appreciated. As my FP iMac has a Combo Drive I've never had to look into external drive options for myself, let alone anyone else...

Thanks!

 

[Ohenri]

La Belle Province!!

Hey - outside of getting a used one, there are tons of burners out there. They're inoffensive and you pretty much have to plug and play. I bought a
Lacie (TEAC mechanism) a few years back (x12 for $399 on sale!! ). I still have it and it has served/serves me very well. Now, early in iTunes, I did have a issue with the app seeing the burner, and there was this work around that I could not get to work. But in the end, I never had real issues. The new Lacies are 1/2 the price and x48-x52 speeds. Go fer it! But I will say, I side with combo drives on laptops now. No real reason not to have one, unless you're getting a prev owned one.

 

[Neil Yates]

You could also get a LiteON 52x CD-RW IDE drive for about $50 to $80 CDN (depending on where you buy it - PC part shops are best), and drop it into a FireWire 5.25" case.

You don't have to spend a fortune on a FireWire case. Here's a popular one:

http://www.atacom.com/program/print_html_new.cgi?cart_id=7842407_64_230_84_55&Pagecode=1|USBE&Item_code=USBE_ATEC_23_5W&USER_ID=www ($49 US)

Lots available on eBay too. If you want decent performance, see out the Oxford Semiconductor OHCI bridge chip (OX311) in these cases. Some state it. It will be more expensive though.

However, if you don't want the hassles, go with LaCie ($249.99 CDN + Taxes)